Since it was in full operation until all hours of the night, it gave out stinking fumes, and the clatter of its machinery disturbed the afternoon peace of everyone who lived in the tenements; they never stopped complaining, protesting, even demonstrating, and forming blockades at the gates of the establishment. Eventually the tenement landlords, descendants of Niepold, prevailed on the factory management to open up the establishment an hour later and shut it down an hour earlier. Having worked there for twenty years, even during the time of Mr Thiemann senior, Hildegard Wilck could not get used to the new working arrangements, and the clacking of her wooden clogs could invariably be heard in the inner yard before seven in the morning. And that day – as on every other day – fifty-year-old Miss Wilck stood outside the closed laundry gossiping with the concierge, Mrs Annemarie Zesche. Their interminable conversations drew facetious criticism from Siegfried Franzkowiak, a carpenter living on the ground floor, who did not cease to be amazed at the eloquence of both women.
